Album Review

It's true that Spirit were a very album-oriented band, one that might best be experienced through albums rather than compilations. If you do want those albums, the first four and best of them are all available on CD, sometimes with bonus tracks. If a compilation's good enough for you, this is a good one to get, its 16 songs drawing pretty equally from those four initial Ode/Epic albums. Basically, it's an expanded edition of the 1973 compilation The Best of Spirit, which consisted of the first 11 songs on this disc, though this version adds five more tracks and updated liner notes. Granted, the band's mere handful of well-known songs are gotten out of the way right away ("1984," "Mechanical World," "Nature's Way," "Animal Zoo," "Fresh-Garbage," "I Got a Line on You"). But the rest of it's pretty solid too, including "Uncle Jack," a high point of pseudo-Beatleish psychedelia, and "Taurus," which (in)famously includes an acoustic guitar riff extremely similar to the one that cropped up a few years later in Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven." Given the tendency of some of the albums from which these are taken to meander, this is actually a good alternative for the listener who likes Spirit's most accessible tunes, but isn't enamored of their full-length works.

Customer Reviews

yeah

by
AFIN

well i think spirit is absolutely brilliant...too bad led zepellin had to rip off their song "Taurus" and make it their own well-known Stairway to Heaven...listen to Taurus you will know what i mean

This is a great group from an era gone by

by
Logixisbad

I will show my age, I saw Spirit perform with Steppinwolf in Seattle a thousand years ago. For me, Spirit was the main attraction, excellent musicianship, and fantastic material.On a side note, this is not the first time Led Zeppelin has had their hand in other peoples cookie jar. They also ripped off "Whole lot of lovin'" It belonged to an older southern blues guy, now passed away. His widow was on the radio describing the legal battles she was in trying to get just renumeration from the publishers.

Ummagumma

by
Parsons, KS

Stairway to Heaven does have a very similar progression as Taurus but come on Stairway has 3 completely different sections and is 8 minutes long compared to just 2 and a half minutes. My point is IT IS NOT A RIP OFF. Jimmy Page is a genius and Stairway to Heaven is one of the if not the greatest songs of all-time.

P.S. It's not "whole lotta lovin' " it's "Whole lotta Love"

Biography

Formed: 1967 in Los Angeles, CA

Genre: New Age

Years Active: '60s, '70s, '80s

Spirit was a highly regarded rock band that achieved modest commercial success, charting 11 albums in the U.S. between 1968 and 1977. Founded in Los Angeles in 1967 by musicians who had a mixture of rock, pop, folk, blues, classical, and jazz backgrounds, and who ranged in age from 16 to 44, the group had an eclectic musical style in keeping with the early days of progressive rock; they were as likely to play a folk ballad featuring fingerpicked acoustic guitar, a jazz instrumental full of imaginative...